"You are an aristocrat!" stormed the young man. "A pampered, insolent
aristocrat! A dog of an Englishman! A _scélérat_! Don't suppose you are
to trample upon us for nothing! We are Frenchmen, you beggarly
islander--Frenchmen, do you hear?"

A growl of sympathetic indignation ran through the crowd, and "_à bas
les aristocrats_--_à bas les Anglais_!" broke out here and there.

"In the devil's name, Sullivan," said Dalrymple, shouldering his way up
to the object of these agreeable menaces, "what have you been after, to
bring this storm about your ears?"

"Pshaw! nothing at all," replied he with a mocking laugh, and a
contemptuous gesture. "I danced with a pretty girl, and treated her to
champagne afterwards. Her mother and brother hunted us out, and spoiled
our flirtation. That's the whole story."

Something in the laugh and gesture--something, too, perhaps in the
language which they could not understand, appeared to give the last
aggravation to both of Sullivan's assailants. I saw the young man raise
his arm to strike--I saw Dalrymple fell him with a blow that would have
stunned an ox--I saw the crowd close in, heard the storm break out on
every side, and, above it all, the deep, strong tones of Dalrymple's
voice, saying:--

"To the boat, boys! Follow me."

In another moment he had flung himself into the crowd, dealt one or two
sounding blows to left and right, cleared a passage for himself and us,
and sped away down one of the narrow walks leading to the river.